


Not A Hope In Hell's Kitchen

by MissMoochy



Series: MissMoochy's FebuWhump 2021 Oneshots [5]
Category: Daredevil (Comics), Daredevil (TV), Marvel
Genre: Alternate Universe - Zombie Apocalypse, FebuWhump2021, Gen, Gen or Pre-Slash, POV Foggy Nelson, Zombie Apocalypse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-06
Updated: 2021-02-06
Packaged: 2021-03-12 01:27:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,396
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29252226
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MissMoochy/pseuds/MissMoochy
Summary: FebuWhump 2021 Day 5: ["Take me instead!"]A big shove rocked the door and a chair untangled from the pile and went flying. Foggy leapt back, pulling Karen with him. Matt shifted, got in front of them and Foggy recognised the defensive stance. They were really doing this. It hit him like a punch, the knowledge that he probably wasn’t going to make it out of here alive. None of them was. He and Karen were surely dead. Matt might hold out for a while, but all it took was one bite to succumb. And while he might not like to think it, Matt wasn’t invulnerable. The sudden realisation of his mortality hit him and he felt grimly ready to say words he’d never dreamed he’d be capable of speaking. He wished he'd said them earlier, try twelve years...“Matt, I need to tell you something,”“Tell me later. When we get out.”
Relationships: Matt Murdock & Franklin "Foggy" Nelson, Matt Murdock & Franklin "Foggy" Nelson & Karen Page
Series: MissMoochy's FebuWhump 2021 Oneshots [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2136714
Comments: 2
Kudos: 10





	Not A Hope In Hell's Kitchen

“Matt, they’re gonna get in!” Foggy was pressed to the door, while Karen and Matt ran around the office in a frenzy, dragging chairs and tables. They’d never been able to afford high-quality furniture, and a lot of it was flat-pack crap. Easy to assemble and disassemble but not much good as a barricade.

“Here!” Karen slotted a chair in with the muddle of furniture and Foggy slithered out. He could barely hear her soft voice under the screams and groans.

“Okay, what do we do now?”

“We have to call someone!” Karen already had her phone in her hand. Matt was standing eerily still, with his head cocked in that familiar way, listening intently. Probably trying to figure out how many monsters were outside.

“Who?” Foggy snapped. “Fucking Ghostbusters?”

She turned away from him, her cellphone pressed to her ear. “I'm trying 911, nothing's working—”

“The police? What the hell are they gonna do? Some of these guys were probably cops—” _Brett._ He’s probably out there. Out in town, trying to help people, get them inside their homes. Or maybe he’s with the other guys. Chomping on poor bastard’s arm right now. There are other names that he thinks of, faces of his family but he resolves to worry about them later. Right now, he needs to keep himself and his friends alive.

“I need to leave,” Matt decided and Foggy and Karen stared at him. “There are people out there who are fighting for their lives. I can help them.”

Both Karen and Foggy began talking at once, harsh voices and pointing fingers. “No, you’re staying here with us, it’s not safe, you set one foot out there and you’ll get bitten!”

“Listen to Foggy, he’s right. Matt, you have to stay here with us!”

“But—” Matt was clearly torn, desperate to get out there and protect the innocent but unwilling to leave his friends in the lurch. Foggy made the executive decision to do something that was a bit under-handed, a bit below the belt. Play to Matt’s weakness: Foggy.

“Matt.” Firmly ignoring the screeching from outside and the bucking door, he grabbed Matt’s sleeve. Matt came to him, miserably, pinched face and bowed head. But he came to him, of course, he did. “You gotta stay with us, man. You’re our only chance of surviving. If you leave us alone, me and Karen, we’ll get ripped apart.”

He wasn’t lying and he knew his heartbeat must relay that truth, because Matt pulled him into a lung-crushing hug and rested his forehead against his. “I’ll get us out of this, Foggy,” he mumbled and it was so ridiculous, how could one man promise such a thing? But he sounded so genuine and Foggy wanted to believe him. “I’ll keep you and Karen safe, okay?”

“I know you will,” Foggy said, clapping him on the shoulder.

Karen rushed over. “I got through to Frank!" she cried. "He’s going to come and get us. We’re going to be okay!”

Foggy wasn’t sure he had much faith in Castle but—

“There’s more of them,” Matt said suddenly. “Three more just joined them.”

“How many are there now?”

Matt paused. “Seven. They’re ramming the door. I think we ne—”

* * *

A big shove rocked the door and a chair untangled from the pile and went flying. Foggy leapt back, pulling Karen with him. Matt shifted, got in front of them and Foggy recognised the defensive stance. They were really doing this. It hit him like a punch, the knowledge that he probably wasn’t going to make it out of here alive. None of them was. He and Karen were surely dead. Matt might hold out for a while, but all it took was one bite to succumb. And while he might not like to think it, Matt wasn’t invulnerable. The sudden realisation of his mortality hit him and he felt grimly ready to say words he’d never dreamed he’d be capable of speaking. He wished he'd said them earlier, try twelve years...

“Matt, I need to tell you something,”

“Tell me later. When we get out.”

“But—”

The scratching of clawed hands, the groaning voices overlapping, all of it, so ugly. It wasn’t a horror movie. It was the bleak reality. The door came ajar, just a fraction and an arm wormed through. Matt, Foggy and Karen worked as one mechanism, throwing themselves at the door, putting their combined weight on it, trading panicked looks. Foggy tried to memorise their faces through his tears, Matt’s clenched jaw, Karen’s mussed hair, this was the last time he was going to see them.

More arms burst through, clawing at anything in reach. They yanked on Foggy’s collar, snagged a fistful of Karen’s hair. She screamed, a piercing shriek and Foggy wrestled with the limb to get it off her.

Inevitable, really. They couldn’t hold out forever. Karen kept whispering that they just had to hold out for a little longer because Frank was really coming, he said he was…

But he wasn’t, was he?

The good news is, Karen didn’t become one of them. He thinks she would have preferred to die than to be _this._

When they swarmed in, dragging feet and rolling eyes, she was snatched quite quickly, yanked backwards by her hair. Matt and Foggy wrestled with the zombie, trying to pull her free, and somewhere in the mix, the zombie tackled her too savagely and her head was wrenched to the side and—

Her corpse distracted a few. They gnawed on her while the rest backed Matt and Foggy against the wall. Foggy couldn’t really move, Matt had thrown his arms in front of him, keeping Foggy behind him but boxing him in. He stared out over Matt’s shoulder.

“Take me instead!” Matt tried and fuck, he always tried harder than anybody Foggy knew. “Just leave him alone!”

They wouldn’t listen, they were beyond that. He felt the many hands wrench Matt away from him and he grabbed his wrist, tried to pull him back but Matt was lost in the tide. He was swallowed by bodies, bent over him like paramedics attending to an invalid. Two creatures were still chewing on Karen’s body, and the other three were at Matt’s side, making those hideous, wet sloppy sounds of feasting.

Two zombies left. That’s all it was. He wished he still had his baseball bat. They moved as one, lolloping forward, arms outstretched. It was hard to think of them as people, their sunken eyes and bloodstained skin were completely unrecognisable as human.

But he forced himself to look at them, really see them. One was a guy from the office below, he thought his name might be Taylor. Young, with sandy hair. Suit and tie. He’d held the elevator for Foggy once. The other might have been one of Taylor's clients, a plump woman in a dark green tracksuit. That tracksuit was blackened in places, damp with blood.

A shot rang through the air and Taylor collapsed at Foggy’s feet. Another shot and the woman crumpled like a broken figurine. Foggy gasped as Frank fucking Castle strode in. He had a gun in each hand and he wasted no time, killing the other five creatures. His gaze swept the room, settling on Karen’s broken body. Her beautiful blonde hair was spread out on the carpet, dyed red at the tips with blood. His jaw tightened.

“They got her,” Foggy told him. “Frank, I’m so s—”

“We gotta go. I’ve got the van. Come on.” Frank didn’t linger, he turned and headed out of the room. Didn't spare it a second glance.

Foggy got to his feet, roughly wiping tears from his eyes. He had to go, he had to — Castle was right, no fucking weakness, you got to move, no time to waste worrying about... Matt.

 _Matt was still there._ Frank hadn’t seen him, Matt's body was half-hidden under the mountain of furniture. 

One pale arm was uncovered, limp as a dead fish. The skin was mottled with red teeth marks, angry imprints of teeth, exposing red muscle and sinew.

He thought he saw the fingers twitch. Just for a second. Was it his imagination or was the flickering light playing tricks on his eyes?

“Nelson? Come on, we gotta fucking GO!”

Foggy gave the hand one last look and ran out of the room.


End file.
